The Elementary Particles Review

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The Elementary Particles ReviewWhen I read the shrill reviews from the uptight liberals at the New York Times, I knew this book had to be good. I was right. The Elementary Particles is the story of two half-brothers in post-1960s France. When their hippy mother runs off to a New Age community in California, the two boys are sent to live with different sets of grandparents. The boys grow up in a world infected by the ideas of the 1960s revolution. The highest values are American ones: radical individualism, sexual liberation, and self-expression. The bonds holding people together have been eroded as France is mercilessly (and tragically) Americanized. Every facet of life has been reduced to crude, radical competition. The law of the jungle prevails. The two brothers react to this sad new world in interesting ways. Bruno -- a teacher, failed writer, and chronic masturbator -- embarks on a life of endless searching for love but becomes obsessed with pornography, sex clubs, cyber sex, and nudist holiday camps; he molests one of his female students. Michel, a scientist, withdraws from the world, unable to love; he devotes all his time to biology and genetics research. Their superficially different reactions bely the fact that they suffer from the same modern disease which manifests itself in an inability to love, self-absorption, and an absence of meaningful social interactions. There is no larger community in this world; just a bunch of atomized human beings -- elementary particles -- that occasionally bump into one another for sex. They are adrift in a decadent West unaware of its own rapid decline. Bruno and Michel ultimately choose similar ways to deal with their sad fate. This book is a timely indictment of the social, sexual, economic, and technological upheavals in the West since the 1960s. This may help explain why Houellebecq has been so viciously denounced by the liberal and conservative establishment, not only in France but also in America. Speaking truth to power makes enemies. As a much-needed critique of a global society dominated by liberal, consumerist American values this is a very important work. But as a deconstruction of that society it is only the beginning. It is also entertaining and hilarious, if at times needlessly graphic. I recommend it.The Elementary Particles Overview

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The Concert: A Novel Review

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The Concert: A Novel Reviewthis book is amazing. it's so sweeping in scope and vast in its concerns. chronicling the decline and eventual fall of the diplomatic ties between albania and china, the novel centers on several characters whose lives are directly and indirectly implicated by the sinister game-play of doublespeak and ambivalent symbolic gestures which are hallmarks of chinese politics. this novel is relentless in its critical view of a very complicated relationship, but it does not fall into the trap of blaming or accusation on either. instead, Kadare carefully delineates the various nuances emitted by the Chinese government which are then carefully, if not always successfully, interpreted by the Albanian government so as to chart the next political move. Mao Zedong is given a certain prominence here, and the novel's marvellous rendition of this strange man and his predilection with death and the theatre would give any psychoanalyst a field day. in my view, the most compelling section of the novel is the interchapter of the tragedy of macbeth, which can be read as a cleverly intertext of the history of the power-struggle between Zedong and his marshall, Lin Biao, and/or as the superior-subordinate dialectic between China and Albania. truly, Kadare is one of the 20th (and the 21st) century's most important writer, and this novel is enough to vouch for his excellence.The Concert: A Novel Overview

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The Facts of Winter Review

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The Facts of Winter ReviewPaul La Farge's book THE FACTS OF WINTER is a haunting, funny, intriguing, little book. There are echoes of the unreliable editor of Nabokov's Pale Fire or the authorial self-awareness of Calvino's If On a Winter's Night a Traveler and the strings of strange little stories like Calvino's Invisible Cities. Yet, it is a lovely work in it's own right and is in no way derivative of these earlier works.
The book features a series of short dreams (1-3 pages) of Parisians in 1881. On facing pages, the reader is treated to French and English versions of the dream narratives followed by an academic-styled afterward examining the life of the ersatz author Paul Poissel. The writing is lyrical and the reader has a haunting feeling of the interconnectedness of certain images and ideas among the dreams that in a way that is highly pleasing but difficult to explain. If one reads even a little French there are certain sly winks in the French. As discussed in the afterward, the title itself is a pun in French: Les faits d'hiver or L'effet divers. The illustrations are an added bonus and suit the work perfectly. They remind me of Lorca's doodles.
Much like trying to describe a dream to a friend it is difficult to describe the way the book connects and intertwines as you read it which is perhaps why they other reviews are so brief and why I've resorted to so many comparisons. It is not a book for those who demand straightforward narrative, but for those who enjoy good, poetic writing and are willing to let the work wash over them it is a lovely read. It is the best thing I've read in months.
The Facts of Winter OverviewThe Facts of Winter is a series of dreams, all dreamed by people in and around Paris during the winter of 1881. It is historical fiction once removed: an account of events that were imaginary even from the point of view of an invented past - although Poissel claimed (in a letter to his friend Bartholomeo Facil, August, 1905) that "the characters in this book are all true - all persons who really lived and slept that winter."

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The Battle Review

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The Battle ReviewThis historical novel slaps its readers in the face with the reality of a grape loaded 12 pounder. We are wisked from the streets of a newly occupied city, Vienna in 1809, to the front lines of a Napoleonic battle, where in one stunning scene the emperor's guard stand to attention while a hail of fire thins their ranks, literly filling the gaps in the line by shoving away the fragments of their now destroyed commrads. Each scene is accurate, in every detail, from the horrors of 19th century medicine, to the soilder's uniforms, arms and food. One feels the panic of the helpless city as it is looted and plundered, and one can smell the cordite and hear the clash of sabers as the combat discriptions grip your heart and stomach to each line. A excellent book if only because of its ability to seem like a bit of real insight into what a event like this was at so many levels. To the common solider, the oficer, the camp follower, and to Naploeon himself. A great readThe Battle Overview

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The Character of Rain: A Novel Review

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The Character of Rain: A Novel Review"In the beginning was nothing, and this nothing had neither form not substance -it was nothing other than what it was." I read the opening sentence of Amélie Nothomb's, The Character of Rain (Métaphysique des Tubes), and was hooked. I was not disappointed. Using a Japanese belief that children are gods until age 3, at which time they fall and become human Nothomb constructs a brilliant study of infancy. Deeply autobiographical, like all her work, and deeply philosophical, like all her work, what amazed me most was how completely she captured or imagined the self-preoccupation that is early childhood. Any child will believe it is the center of the universe (and why not an infant must be watched and waited on), and yet the same child will experience "the fall," the recognition that he or she is not a god, is not the center of the universe. Nothomb's ability to recognize this essential problem of being a child and tease out of her own experience the joys and pains of existence in a way that is as imminently and entertainingly readable as it is philosophical is where her genius lies. I've never read anything like it.The Character of Rain: A Novel OverviewThe Japanese believe that until the age of three, children, whether Japanese or not, are gods, each one an okosama, or "lord child." On their third birthday they fall from grace and join the rest of the human race. In Amelie Nothomb's new novel, The Character of Rain, we learn that divinity is a difficult thing from which to recover, particularly if, like the child in this story, you have spent the first tow and a half years of life in a nearly vegetative state."I remember everything that happened to me after the age of two and one-half," the narrator tells us. She means this literally. Once jolted out of her plant-like , tube-like trance (to the ecstatic relief of her concerned parents), the child bursts into existence, absorbing everything that Japan, where her father works as a diplomat, has to offer. Life is an unfolding pageant of delight and danger, a ceaseless exploration of pleasure and the limits of power. Most wondrous of all is the discovery of water: oceans, seas, pools, puddles, streams, ponds, and, perhaps most of all, rain-one meaning of the Japanese character for her name. Hers is an amphibious life.The Character of Rain evokes the hilarity, terror, and sanctity of childhood. As she did in the award-winning, international bestesller Fear and Trembling, Nothomb grounds the novel in the outlines of her experiences in Japan, but the self-portrait that emerges from these pages is hauntingly universal. Amelie Nothomb's novels are unforgettable immersion experiences, leaving you both holding your breath with admiration, your lungs aching, and longing for more.

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The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English Review

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The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English ReviewThose two authors share space in this magnificent reference volume on English Literature. The sturdy, oversized Guide presents over one thousand pages of information on authors, novels, poetry, drama, and literary terms. There are interesting biographies of prominent writers and obscure ones, from Mrs. Humphrey Ward to William Faulkner.
Good plot summaries are provided for a wide range of novels. If you are a fan of Anthony Trollope, you will find no less than twenty five of his books discussed. You have to be careful, however, if you are reading the plot of a book in order to decided whether or not you want to read it - the ending is always given away. The Cambridge Guide explores many literary terms: Meter; the Bloomsbury Group; positivism; and post-structuralism. There are also entries on Literary Journals - yes, the New York Review of Books is here as well as Granta.
The Cambridge Guide is written for the average layman and avoids academic jargon. I decided to try the entry on "deconstruction" as the extreme test of explaining difficult concepts. It's hard to say: either they failed the test, or I failed it.
This book has become one of my prized possessions, and I would have been willing to buy it at twice the price charged.The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English Overview

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Making Love: A Novel Review

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Making Love: A Novel ReviewIn Jean-Phillippe Toussaint's world, the details matter. The author of _Monsieur_ as well as _The Bathroom_, Toussaint excels when cleverly describing situations in agonizing detail, with all the skill of an artful rendering or a classic oil painting. There are no whirlwhinds of action, barroom brawls or car chases. The action in _Making Love_ occurs in scenes involving dropped umbrellas, inconvenient faxes, and missed taxis. A couple has drifted apart, and their relationship will apparently end in Japan. An ultramodern Tokyo provides the sterile spaces against which the drama is played out. The narrator carries a bottle of hydrochloric acid with him at all times. What will he do? Will he toss it in the face of a stranger? His girlfriend? The female protagonist, a prickly conundrum, cries and sulks. As their worlds seem to crumble around them, the couple tumbles through a landscape of outer calm and inner turmoil. As the reader comes to finish the novel, he realizes that Toussaint has made himself a hero of sorts, simply through the molding of his bleakly wonderful creation.
What a marvelous novel. While _Making Love_ has none of the humor of _The Bathroom_ or _Monsieur_ (both are recommended), it remains a worthwhile read for Toussaint's gifted description of lives coming apart.Making Love: A Novel OverviewA stark, ultramodern novel of an affair's disintegration.An immediate bestseller in France, Making Love is an original and daring retelling of a classic theme: the end of an affair. As much an exploration of setting and place as it is of the affair that comes apart in them, Making Love follows a couple's final days together in Japan. Toussaint writes with an economy and restraint that evoke the distinct imagery of film while allowing a startling proximity to the feelings of his characters. The result is vertiginous, standing traditional images on their head and transposing the conflict and confusion of lost intimacy onto the labyrinthine ultramodernism of Tokyo and Kyoto. Brilliantly written and strikingly original, this is a stunning work of new fiction from one of Europe's most promising authors.

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Aurorarama Review

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Aurorarama ReviewJean-Christophe Valtat's perplexing, yet beguiling, new novel "Aurorarama" may be one of the more difficult titles I've attempted to review. On one hand, I'm not entirely sure that the narrative makes sense. But on the other, I'm not sure that it matters. The prose is so fluid and intriguing that I was swept up in the language and imagery that Valtat was serving up even as the head-scratching plot twists unfolded. Part political treatise, part religious allegory--this novel blends elements of science fiction and fantasy into a setting rooted firmly in the past. A mass of fascinating contradictions, I was thoroughly captivated by the strange fictional world populating an Arctic city circa 1908 called New Venice.

The principle characters are Brentford Orsini and Gabriel d'Allier. While friends, their stories are told and tend to overlap in alternating chapters. Both have been close to the political heart of New Venice and both, in varying degrees of involvement, have become entrenched in the rebellion that has formed within the underbelly of the city. With Eskimo outlaws, a secret police force, a strange unexplained airship hovering over the city, visions and mysticism, magic and hypnotism--and lest I leave out my personal favorite, a ventriloquist's dummy with a nasty bite--Valtat's surrealism is part poetry, part lunacy.

I suspect "Aurorarama" will be a polarizing volume--you'll love its lyricism or you'll say "What the heck????" I really, really enjoyed the writing--the flow, the feel, the evocative nature that is created. But that said, I can't honestly say that I would recommend the book to very many people. It seems almost like a literary experiment that should be admired for its ambitions as opposed to a work to be universally embraced. For adventurous souls and something way off the beaten path, give this a look. On the strength of the writing alone, I'd have rated this about 3 1/2 stars--but I'm rounded up for the sheer imagination of it all.

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The Sonderberg Case Review

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The Sonderberg Case ReviewThis is Wiesel's first novel in awhile. I love his writing. This is a story within a story. It is a story of a man's life & a story of a criminal case the man covered as a theater critic. The case evolves from a simple case of murder to a case involving false identities & the Holocaust. The narrator also has an identity he can't remember, since he was a Jewish child who was sent away to be saved during the Holocaust. He remembers parents lost but forgotten. He remembers being unwanted by the family of the girl who saved him. He loves his Grandfather, who came from the family who adopted him. Who nurtured him & who loves him & where do his own wife & children fit into his life? Wiesel takes all these questions & molds them into this short & very readable novel.The Sonderberg Case Overview

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